He went to buy a PlayStation from Facebook. Then, the seller pulled out a gun, police say
Burton saw two armed robberies in two days stemming from social media last week, according to police.
In both cases, people who had used Facebook Marketplace, an in-app sales platform that lets users post photos of items for sale and then message one another to arrange payment and delivery, were robbed at gunpoint while meeting up to exchange the items.
So far, police have not found a connection between the two incidents, Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Bob Bromage said Wednesday.
The first robbery took place on Feb. 3 at Possum Hill Road. According to a police report, the victim had agreed to meet a seller there who was offering a PlayStation 5 on Facebook. When he arrived, he saw a man there that he recognized as a former classmate at Battery Creek High School, whose name is redacted from the report.
When the victim asked his former classmate if he knew who was selling the gaming console, he walked off and then came back to pull a gun on the victim, telling the victim to “give him his money.”
He held a gun to the victim’s head and opened his car door, taking the victim’s wallet from the passenger seat and then running off.
Bromage said that no arrests have been made in the Feb. 3 robbery. Police took DNA swabs from the victim and his car, according to the report.
One day later, another Burton resident was robbed at gunpoint during a Facebook Marketplace interaction. She had listed her cellphone for sale on the site and was robbed at her Roseida Road home by three juveniles, according to police.
Dorrian Morgan, 17, of Burton was charged with armed robbery on Feb. 4 in the cell phone case. He will be tried as an adult due to the seriousness of the crime, Bromage previously told the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
Two other teenagers involved in that case, who were not named because they are minors, were petitioned to Family Court and transported to the Department of Juvenile Justice in Columbia, Bromage said.
Bromage encouraged people to meet up in police station parking lots instead of their homes or other unsecured locations for this kind of sale.
“A public place is always a better place to pick out for this, with people around so there are witnesses to the transaction or whatever the case may be,” he said.